Shloka 293
कर्णपरर्वणि त्रयोचत्वारिंशदध्यायः (Karṇa-parva Adhyāya 43) — Kṛṣṇa’s Battlefield Assessment and the Reversal Around Bhīma
सबालवृद्धा: क्रन्दन्तस्तेषु धर्म: कथं भवेत् । “जो शाकलनिवासी आबालवृद्ध नर-नारी मदिरासे उन्मत्त हो चिल्ला-चिल्लाकर ऐसी गाथाएँ गाया करते हैं, उनमें धर्म कैसे रह सकता है?”
sabālavṛddhāḥ krandantas teṣu dharmaḥ kathaṃ bhavet
Karna disse: “Quando até as crianças e os velhos, entre eles, clamam em altos brados, como poderia o dharma permanecer ali? Num lugar onde o povo — homens e mulheres de todas as idades — enlouquece com a bebida e, aos gritos, canta tais baladas, que espaço resta para a retidão?”
कर्ण उवाच
Educational Q&A
Karna frames dharma as inseparable from social restraint and humane conduct: where intoxication, loud disorder, and the suffering cries of the vulnerable prevail, moral order cannot be sustained.
Karna is speaking critically about a community (associated with Śākala in the accompanying gloss), portraying it as morally degraded—people of all ages intoxicated and shouting—using this as evidence that dharma is absent there.